Understanding Chess Move by Move Paperback – April 1, 2001

Understanding Chess is remarkably similar to Chernev's earlier, and notably famous, Logical Chess: grandmaster games are featured in both books, and the formatting of each game with analysis and diagrams after each move is remarkable similar. Open the two side by side and they practically look like the same book.But Nunn's book is significantly better for a few simple reasons. First, Chernev features just one game from the 1950s and two from the 1940s - the rest date from the late 19th to early 20th century. Consequently, a lot of the games are simply outdated, and rarely seen in today's play. This is a simplistic criticism, but true, nonetheless. Almost all of Nunn's games date from the 1990s. Second, and more importantly, Nunn's analysis is simply better. Nunn explains the reasons behind each move with more depth than Chernev does. But Nunn is careful to do so in a way that is still understandable to the beginner. I have little experience with chess and I understand practically all of Nunn's analysis. True, Nunn sometimes includes variations that are difficult to consider without a board in hand, but these variations are far less essential than the actual move analysis.I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in chess.

First things first - I'm not much of a chess player. But this book makes complex positions appear simple. Nunn has obviously spent a lot of time finding the games which make this book such a joy. Clear thematic examples, but nothing trivial or one-sided.Like with the Chernev classic, Nunn attempts to explain each move (though blessedly her refers to previous games which share the same opening moves). I read the book on a Kindle and that had the advantage of hyperlinks to those referenced games.The analysis of the opening moves is perfect - why can't Opening Books be written like this. Nunn clearly explains why, later in the game, a particular choice is important.Weaker players like me can choose to ignore some of the analysis. There can be lengthy variations which explain (usually) how a better move could have been made. I did follow along with some of them but having a board (or digital equivalent) is necessary for that. But I found the main text could be understood pretty well without playing along with it. The board's position was shown enough for me to follow in my head.Highly recommended for someone learning the game; better players would probably get even more out of it!

For any serious or trying to be serious player this is a must read. At some point game analysis is necessary. At first pass this is a tedious and slow book. However, this is a book to be slowly digested rather than read over years. As my game improves I value this book more and more (my ELO 1600). I have read certain games 5 times over, and I have not been through all the games; I have had this book two months. It takes time to develop the thinking skills these GM's show, and as well to understand why I am not. Would recommend this book highly to anyone with an ELO over 1400. For a analytic book that reads more like a book would recommend Seirewan's Winning Chess: Brilliancies which is move by move with a easy prose.

I don't have a FIDE or USCF rating, but I am about an intermediate to light advanced player, maybe Category C/B. This is my second move by move type of book, the first was Seirawan's Winning Brilliancies. I will focus in this review on a specific issue that I think all annotated chess books generally have, but particularly John Nunn's.Needless to say, all annotated games collections chess books should provide a healthy balance between useful explanatory prose and concrete analysis, with all its variations and sub-variations. A book that heavily emphasizes prose isn't very useful, if the explanations don't hold up under concrete analyses. And vice versa, if the book is nothing but reams of analyses, it's useless to the vast majority of the consuming chess playing public, since 99% of us aren't masters+. And considering that chess engines today are robust and still keep getting better, books with mostly analyses in them are becoming obsolete anyway.Having said that, this is what I wish all annotated games chess books contained: for the intermediate-advanced players, it would be most helpful, IMO, if the author (and publisher) distinguished between absolutely critical lines and sub-lines and merely alternative/playable lines, preferably by color. In other words, it would provide a helpful way for the student to know which lines/sub-lines he/she ought to absolutely pay attention to and which lines he/she can choose to ignore. Clearly, there are positions in every chess game which are critical, where one path may lead to a win or a considerable advantage and another to a loss or draw. It would be foolish to ignore those lines, even for the beginning students. But there are also many lines authors give that are merely playable - in other words, even the computer evaluates the text line and alternative line as roughly equal. Those alternative lines may perhaps be of use to advanced/master level tournament players, who are looking for some novelties or off the beaten path lines in order to obtain some advantage in their competitions. But unless there is some strategic/tactical/positional lesson in those lines, they are probably useless to the majority of us.John Nunn is a very meticulous chess researcher (and he himself was a world's top 10 player at some point), but many of the lines he provides in his books are of the "alternative/playable" types, that IMO just distract, rather than teach. It's a problem with the vast majority of annotated chess games books, of course, not just Nunn's.The other issue with this book, is that the games chosen in this book involve many highly tactical positions, so that concrete analyses becomes practically unavoidable in many positions. And hence, strategic/positional lessons are very few and far in between here.So, to conclude, I wish Nunn (and other authors) would essentially categorize variations that are absolutely critical for beginners-intermediates (for better understanding); variations that are helpful only to the advanced intermediates and above (critical fork in the road types of positions) and variations that may be of use only to the competing tournament players/masters+ (the merely playable lines).All in all, this is another solid book from Nunn. But don't expect to suddenly get better as a result of studying it. But it should definitely be part of any staple diet of chess books for the improving and advanced player.